


Mad About the Boy

by RhetoricFemme



Series: JeanMarco World War II AU [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 13:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19906270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhetoricFemme/pseuds/RhetoricFemme
Summary: Raindrops on the window and the warmth of the radiator inside, it's 1946 when Jean Kirschstein and Marco Bodt start to fall in love.





	Mad About the Boy

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a few months now that I've had this WWII AU building inside my head. It's elaborate and personal, and while I don't know if there'll ever be a properly chaptered story, I would like to occasionally write oneshots describing parts of it.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

It was a strange twist of irony that Marco enjoyed Jean’s preference for keeping their clothes on. But that’s how it was in their early days.

Slow dancing to Helen Forrest in Marco’s apartment in the year 1946, they were already in so deep. Even if it was too soon for either of them to say the words, Marco knew it.

During his younger days (twenty-six years old and having survived his time in France and the Marianas Islands, he could call it that—his younger days) Marco hadn’t required much more than a smart mouth and a handsome face to lose his shirt for a few hours in the back of a car.

But times have a tendency to change.

He’d lost people.

Stood up against unjust presumptions made against others.

He had a sense of mortality about him that hadn’t quite existed like this before.

Jean was at the start and the end of it. He was the pinnacle in between.

Jean, as pliant and susceptible to touch as he was beneath Marco’s hands, preferred to keep his shirt on.

More than the fact that Marco wanted to honor that, Marco needed it, too. He’d begun to understand just how affected by this man, by this post-war life he had become.

The way Jean looked at him with uncertainty and adoration set in those amber eyes, that somehow only Marco was able to appease.

His grandfather had spoken of this. Coming across the person who wanted the man as is, while somehow elevating him to a better level of humanity.

Marco could never take credit for wanting to be this good. No, Jean had done this to him.

With their shirts on, Marco could play the role Jean needed. He could tell Jean with an air of confidence that there was nothing to be ashamed of. No reason he needed to explain why nearly a year out of uniform he still couldn’t handle sleeping in a regular bed. No one he needed to answer to.

With his shirt on, Marco could tell Jean that he was welcome any time he needed, that the hour of night was unimportant and that a couch or reclining chair would more than do.

He wasn’t ready yet for the trail of Jean’s fingers against the healed, bare gnarled skin on his side. Hopes Jean has yet to notice the scarred inconsistencies where Marco knows Jean’s hand likes to explore his chest. The places his nerve-endings may or may not ever live again.

But he’d like to get there. He wants Jean to be the last person to peel the shirt off his back. To feel, regardless of clothing, like the rock he knows he can be despite the wounds Jean will likely one day see.

One day.

And if nothing else, right now they have this.

Capping off the long days with pleasant nights dancing at Marco’s apartment. Well after the rest of his company have gone home, ready to put another day into the books, so often Jean will stay.

It’s nights like these that Marco forgets to worry. When the feel of Jean’s hand in his helps him to know that despite having both past and present to haunt them, that they must be doing something right.

Their shirts stay on, but Jean can’t help but smile when Marco noses the spot behind his ear.

“Hey stranger.”

It isn’t that Jean has reservations. Nor is he shy. He simply needs time to figure out the order in which to place the precious things he’s willing to fight for. He knows what he wants.

“Hi.”

There’s no objection to the way Marco reins Jean close, no complaint for the affectionate hand at the small of his back.

“Tell me something nice.” Marco sighs, letting Jean set the gentle rhythm of their back-and-forth. “I want some good news for a change.”

Jean can only laugh under his breath. He bites his tongue and saves the nightmares and cynicism for another time, because this moment just can’t wait until later.

“How about,” he whispers, “you kiss me, instead?”


End file.
